The FBI and Anders Breivik read the same books

Is the FBI putting complete idiots in charge of their counterrrorism initiatives? A recent slideshow obtained from the Bureau by the American Civil Liberties Union would lead one to believe so.

The ACLU has obtained through the Freedom of Information Act “teaching materials” used by the FBI to instruct new recruits about Islam. Among things discovered in the 62-page slideshow, the FBI’s recommended reading list included the” Complete Idiot's Guide To Understanding Islam” and “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam.” FBI officials were also instructed, reveals the document that Muslims were simplefolk with seventh century ways.

Those antiquated ways, said the FBI, are “hard for westerners to understand.” Maybe that’s because there is a pretty big gap between cross-culture thought processes. At least that’s what the FBI was teaching.”The Arabic mind,” writes the FBI, is “swayed more by words than ideas and more by ideas than facts.”

And the complete idiot working for the Federal Bureau of Investigation? They are swayed more by Islamophobic propaganda than truth, it would seem.

Responding to questioning from Wired, the learning material obtained by the ACLU was a “rudimentary version used for a limited time” that has since been replaced. Reporters at Wired.com’s Danger Room note, however, that the information was being made available to agents as recently as January of 2009.

“Based on this presentation, it is easy to see why so many in law enforcement and the FBI view American Muslims with ignorance and suspicion,” Farhana Khera, executive director of Muslim Advocates, tells the website. “The presentation appears to treat all Muslims with one broad brush and makes no distinction between lawful religious practice and beliefs and unlawful activities.”

Mike German, now with the ACLU, tells Talking Points Memo that he left the FBI because of such ignorant approaches to teaching. “Certain I was concerned with the approach the FBI was taking post-9/11,” says German, “which is why I’m not longer with the FBI.”

“I am shocked to see that this type of training material was produced in 2009,” he adds.

Among the other informative, education drivel contained in the slideshow is the warning that Muslims engage in a “circumcision ritual.” Kind of like Jews do, right? And many Christians? In most parts of the United States, in fact, circumcision is carried out by more than half of the males born in the country.

Elsewhere in the slideshow, FBI agents are instructed to look into the readings of one of Norwegian terrorist suspect Anders Breivik’s favorite anti-Muslim writers.